game preview: Clemson

Date/Time: November 21, 3:30 PM

TV: ABC/ESPN (!)

Last matchup: Clemson 13, UVA 3

Last week: BC 14, UVA 10; Clemson 43, NCSU 23

History against the Tigers: 8-36-1

Line: Clemson by 21

Opposing blogs: Block-C, Shakin' the Southland

Do you know what you're going to be doing in 2013? I sure as hell don't. This might sound like a repetitive theme but it is weirder than weird that we share a conference with this team and it'll be four years until we play them again. We never even played against the Jeff Jagodzinski edition of Boston College. The four year gap ensures that, barring a medical redshirt for someone at some point, nobody who takes the field in Saturday's game will do so the next time these two teams meet. It's less weird when it's an expansion opponent like BC. This is a founding member of the ACC we're talking about. Someone really needs to rejigger the rotation. I might have some proposals for this in the nearish future. Anyway, Clemson.

HOW WE CAN WIN

- I'll defer to Block-C here, and their answer to the question about how they lost to Maryland: "...it seemed like we just didn't prepare at all for that game....We just didn't take them seriously and it severely bit us in the ass." So there you have it. If Clemson doesn't prepare or take us seriously. Not that this isn't possible, but Clemson has something very important at stake here, so it's unlikely.

HOW WE CAN LOSE

- The usual, obviously.

HOW THE GAME WILL GO

Well, Clemsonians like to point out that their defense is among the best in the conference, which it is, and therefore likely to stop us in our tracks every time. This is true, but my answer is, how much worse can they make our offense? We can't move the ball against anyone - Clemson ain't special. BC did about what I said they should do, which is run the ball lots and lots. Clemson will do the same and would love the chance for their Heisman candidate to rack up the stats. Montel Harris carried 38 times last week; I wouldn't be surprised if C.J. Spiller tops 40. No disaster of Miami proportions, but this has all the makings of a game where we just get the fight coldly and efficiently strangled out of us and lose something like 27-3.

Two small things:

- This game is on national TV because every game other than UNC/BC is likely to be an even bigger stompfest, and because Clemson is likely going to clinch their spot in the ACCCG. So get ready for the C.J. Spiller Show and a 50/50 chance of the announcers even acknowledging Clemson has an opponent. I put the odds at 2 to 1 in favor of hearing "Rashawn Johnson", "Steve Green", or "Ras-I Downing" when referring to our players.

- Marc Verica is out on the injury report, Hall is questionable, and Sewell probable. And Clemson has the kind of defense that makes quarterbacks have very bad days. Saturday might see the Riko Smalls debut.

REST OF THE ACC

Duke at Miami, 12:00
North Carolina at Boston College, 12:00
Maryland at Florida State, 12:00
NC State at Virginia Tech, 3:30

Q&A with Block-C

So as previously mentioned, a Q&A session has been conducted with Block-C, the preeminent Clemson blogeteers in the business. My answers to their questions will be linked whenever they're up over there - should be sometime later today. (That time is now. Here it is.) That is recommended reading. Meantime, here's what they told me when I pinged them mercilessly about Clemson football:

1. The Al Groh era is coming to an end in Charlottesville. What is your least favorite Clemson-vs.-Groh memory?

That would definitely have to be the Thursday night game back in 2004. We had to play in Charlottesville, in the rain, and got stomped 30-10. Are you enjoying this? (Ed. note: Yes, I am. You get to enjoy Saturday, I'm taking my turn now.)

2. Barring an ACCCG matchup, there won't be another UVA-Clemson game til 2013. Opinion on the ACC schedule that makes that possible? Also, will Dabo Swinney still be coaching?

Well, it swings both ways. We'd like to pick up a relatively easy win for the next few years, but it would make our strength of schedule go down. No knocking on you guys or trying to sound like an arrogant prick, but you guys have your work cut out for you and it'd be nice to capitalize on your growing pains.

3. UVA's president and administration (as well as the Virginia legislature) lobbied the ACC for the addition of Virginia Tech to the invite list when ACC expansion was going on. But Clemson's main OOC rival remains OOC - would Clemson fans have liked to see South Carolina re-admitted to the ACC instead of one of the three teams that did get in? Or is life better when you don't have to share a conference with those you hate?

At first it might be better to have them in lieu of Boston College, but it really is better that they are out of conference. I don't know why, but it really is just nice not to have them in the ACC. Of course, we do get the run of the mill little brother argument that the SEC is harder than the ACC, but they regularly turn around and drop embarrassing losses to us.

4. What's your take on the monstrous abomination that is purple jerseys with purple pants?

They were pretty damned cool the first time we brought them out for Game Day back in 2006, but since then they've been kinda "meh." It's like an internet meme that's being forced now. We wear all purple, we lose. They are definitely garish and have been known to cause seizures, but I'm sick and tired of "Fad-Outs." Stick with the all orange combination for special occasions and that's good enough.

5. Seriously, how in the hell did you lose to Maryland? I ask so I can rip off the answer for the "How we can win" section of my game preview.

I really don't know. I even went to that game and it seemed like we just didn't prepare at all for that game. It was obviously the team still trying to get on the same page as a unit. We just didn't take them seriously and it severely bit us in the ass. We've been waiting for another trap game and I think that was our one for the year.

6. C.J. Spiller carried 14 times for 18 yards in last year's game. Tell us why that won't happen again.

Well, partially because he was splitting time with James Davis who at the time was the number one back in our offense. That and he's grown so much since this time last year. He really has stepped it up and actually filled his shoes in terms of the caliber of player he was projected as when he first stepped foot on Clemson's campus.

7. We have a really brutal offense. I'm setting the over/under on UVA's total yardage at 190, which was last year's total. Over or under?

I gotta say under because looking at the trusty conference stats, you guys are bottom-rungers in most offensive categories and we're near the top of the heap in terms of defenses in the conference. Our defense is definitely the cornerstone of our team and this would be a great game to make a statement for the bowl committees if we don't go the BCS route.

the replacements: Jim Grobe

Wednesday again, and that means another look at a potential next head coach. But first, a few articles about the current one. The ACC Sports Journal weighs in, as does Jay Jenkins of the CDP and Doughty in Roanoke. Two games left means it's time for the media to start writing the postmortems.

Jerry Ratcliffe outdoes them all, though. His analysis of "what went wrong for Groh" is Pulitzer stuff. Seriously. Columnists are on deadlines, and a lot of the time they just mail it in. This is not one of those pieces. It's the sort of above-and-beyond stuff that UVA fans would be well advised to arm themselves with the next time they find themselves in yet another shouting match about the head coach.

I don't agree with 100% of it. So our tough academic standards are being held against us in recruiting? I don't doubt recruits are being told, "You don't want to go to Virginia. Players there run the risk of getting kicked out even though the NCAA says they're eligible. You'll set your career back." But there's a simple response: "Son, I don't care what Coach Beamer or Coach Friedgen say. We don't think you're too stupid for UVA. Maybe they do."

Most of it, I'm entirely on board with. For example, Littlepage was wrong - dead wrong - to unilaterally dismiss Peter Lalich last year. That's the coach's call, not the AD's. As I've harped on in the past, it sends the message that the coach isn't in control, and further, as Ratcliffe points out, it put a giant monkey wrench in the staff's plans.

Anyway, go read it if you haven't already. Finally, also check out the list of Harris poll voters - there's a nice UVA presence with Dick Bestwick and Jim Dombrowski. It's also a fun list to scroll through and see a name you remember and go, "hey, that guy!" Besides the UVA names, for me those were Touchdown Tommy Vardell, the former Lions fullback, and Danny Kanell. Besides being the guy who handed off to Warrick Dunn only to watch him get stuffed at Scott Stadium's 2-yard line, Kanell resurfaced all of a damn sudden as the broadcaster for the Duke game a few weeks ago. Weird. Now, the rest of this space belongs to:

Jim Grobe

Main qualification: Unfucked Wake Forest's program. Also, is UVA alum.

Resume:

1975: Virginia (GA)
1978: Emory & Henry (LB)
1979-83: Marshall (LB)
1984-94: Air Force (LB)
1995-2000: Ohio (HC)
2001-present: Wake Forest (HC)

Let's start with the good. Wake Forest, before Grobe came along, was a graveyard of a program. They wallowed in the bottom of the ACC, told all their opponents except Duke and UNC to "just wait til basketball season", and were thought of as basically automatic. Grobe didn't actually turn that perception around right away, but in the middle of this decade he delivered a surprise ACC championship to Winston-Salem. For the latter part of this decade, people have actually been taking Wake Forest seriously, which is going to be Grobe's legacy there as long as this not-so-good year is an anomaly and not a new pattern.

Grobe is solid people and a solid head coach and not the kind of guy it's easy to bash. Plus he's got that Virginia sheepskin. So it's with a bit of trepidation that I write the rest of this. Grobe is simply the wrong choice for the next head coach.

First off, the similarities between he and Groh run deep. Virginia alums, head coach at Wake Forest, 9th year on the job, basically the same name even - it's kind of eerie. In fact, if Groh had been fired two years ago and Grobe been poached at that time, the general feeling would be that we had replaced Al Groh with Al Groh's good side. But we had that inconvenient 9-win season, which makes it tough to fire a head coach. Now, in my book it's not a bad thing to be compared to Al Groh. Both he and Grobe are quality individuals. But, part of the reason Groh is on the hot seat is that the donor money is drying up and fan interest is dwindling. Littlepage specifically mentioned fan interest in his "we're firing the head coach after the season but I'm not saying that right now" press statement of a couple weeks ago. To be sure, there are still many fans who believe we'd be getting the 2006 version of Jim Grobe and not the 2004 or 2009 one, but overall this isn't a hire that would energize the fanbase much. Or the checkbooks, which is what the administration listens to.

Because here's the thing: Winning record is another area where the two coaches share similiarities. Groh is 59-51. Grobe is 56-50. The difference in total games is, of course, bowl games, which Groh has been to more of. The general argument from Grobe supporters is "look what kind of program Grobe had to work with at Wake Forest." True, they were kind of the dregs and don't have much history. But history matters only a little. What happened in 1975 or 1985 doesn't affect what happens in 2005. (Thank God.) What does matter is what happened in the year or two prior. That's where rebuilding projects are born. Let me show you a set of four season records:

7-5
2-9
5-7
3-9

The first two are Wake, 1999-00. The second two are UVA, 2008-09, assuming the last two games go as expected. Would Grobe really be walking into less of a rebuilding project than he did at Wake? The assumption of course is yes - I'm not so sure. And here's what the first five years of that rebuilding project looked like:

6-5
7-6
5-7
4-7
4-7

If Grobe is hired at UVA and his first five years look like that, there will actually be no fifth year. There may not even be a fourth year. Dave Leitao was punted two years after earning a #4 seed to the NCAAs. Groh was in hot water for going 5-7 once. The 2006 season 5-7 year was so horrendous, Beta Bridge was painted after game 1 of the following season, and the campaign that followed was perceived as a miraculous job-saver. The above is not what we're looking for.

Grobe is essentially the safe hire. Fraidy-cat, even. It's playing Marco Polo in the shallow end when you could be having fun on the diving board. At least, it's as safe as you can be when you run the risk of pissing off a fellow conference denizen by poaching their coach. The reward isn't worth the risk. Grobe will be 58 when next year rolls around, so we'd get, what, maybe seven years out of him if you really stretch it? If we want to go for an older, established coach, Tommy Tuberville is looking for a job. If we want an alum, at least have a look at Derek Dooley, whose remaining coaching usefulness is measured in decades, not years. Grobe could probably get us back to a bowl game in pretty short order, but hiring him would be an acknowledgement that the next coaching hire isn't far off, and in the meantime, a self-consignment to bowl games in Washington, DC and Mobile. I want to shoot higher than that.

ACC roundtable

This time around, Block-C is hosting; you may recognize them as this week's trading partner of questions related to Saturday's game (although such recognition may be difficult as that hasn't happened yet.)

Also, bulletized thoughts on last night's USF game. Which didn't really go as planned.

Anyway, here goes.

1) Let's just say, not trying to jinx anything here, but let's just say the Tigers make the ACC Championship game versus Georgia Tech. Who wins, and why?

Jinx away, fellas, jinx away, it's a good week to do that. But in any case, it doesn't matter who GT plays, GT wins. I said they were the best team before the season, I said they were the best team during the season (except for a short lapse when Miami had me duped into thinking they could be a national powerhouse) and they'll be the best team after the season. No way I'm going back on that prediction now.

2) Has the ACC taken the form that you thought it would at the beginning of the season? If not, what didn't you see coming? Disappointments? Pleasant surprises?

Pretty much about what I figured, except that Florida State isn't as good as I thought and we were supposed to be bowl eligible. And BC's better than everyone thought. The ACC as it is now almost always provides some week-to-week surprises but on the whole it looks about like I, and probably most folks, expected.

3) If your team is not in contention for the ACCCG, what are the necessary changes your program has to make to get your team into the game next year? If there's still a shot, what do you guys need to have happen in order to find yourself in Tampa? Non-team specific writers, pick your flavor of the week and go with it.

There is absolutely no way to fix this offense so it's good enough for a division championship in just one year.

4) If you could point to one player as the brightest spot on your team, who would that person be? Extrapolate a little for us please.

The whole defense has played pretty well all season, but Nate Collins is the guy who stands out the most. I said it in a previous roundtable and I'll say it again: there isn't a better complete defensive lineman in the league. Some are pass rushers and some are run stuffers but Collins is the only one who consistently does both.

5) Swap one player on your team for a player from your hated rival. Who you got and why?

It'd be oh-so-easy and obvious to snag running back extraordinaire Ryan Williams, but when you think about it, what would be the point? He'd still have to run behind our offensive line, and that would cut his yardage in half. I'll take one of their younger offensive linemen instead. We need to fix that unit. I'll take right tackle Blake DeChristopher, who's young enough to provide us with a couple years' worth of better pass blocking than we're getting right now. They can have our backup punter. This seems cruel to Nathan Rathjen, who occupies said position on the depth chart, but consider it like a Mormon mission, where the goal is to spread not a religion, but the gift of reading.

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Hey, it's basketball season! As if I haven't reminded you enough. Fear not: if things go the way they went last night, I'll be looking forward to baseball/lax season soon enough.

No, actually, despite the ugly score, I wasn't discouraged. Much. But I do have opinions:

- The score was a function of two things: 1, obviously we need Assane Sene back pronto - and I'm not even sure that would have changed the outcome because he is one guy and USF has a bunch of big dudes. Any time we face someone who can throw two big dudes out there at the same time like that, we're in deep trouble. And 2, the jump shooting. Reverted right back to last year's atrociousness. That sounds like another problem that's going to stick with us all year. This whole paragraph is Why We Won't Be Good. Unless a steadier rotation puts our players in a better mindset than last year, neither of these are anything Tony Bennett can fix.

- With the bad out of the way early, let's focus on the good - or at least, the rationalizeable. Starting with the defense. Despite the over-.500 shooting percentage from USF, it was, on the whole, excellent. Especially to begin the game. The first, oh, about twelve minutes or so were impeccable, and frustrated Augustus Gilchrist to the point where he threw an elbow that very easily could have been called flagrant. Bennett called for a lot of double teams down low - it was the only way Mustapha Farrakhan was going to ever successfully guard anyone who's 6'11", 240 and yes that matchup happened a couple times. Eventually of course that's the sort of thing that's going to turn out pretty disastrous. And the kind of effort being given for the first quarter of the game is tough to keep going for 40 minutes - but that's what they'll have to learn to do, and Bennett will be hell-bent on making sure of it.

- We got our face caved in on the boards, but that was because we missed so many damn jump shots and we didn't crash the offensive glass. The players were clearly instructed to forget about offensive rebounding and hustle downcourt to set up on D; wise, because it would have been a futile effort anyway and resulted in a zillion fast break points. Given the challenges we faced on defense and the boards, this would have been a really good game to live up to the Tony Bennett stereotype and waste the first three-quarters of the shot clock in order to reduce possessions. It was not a good game for Sammy Zeglinski to jack up the first open jump shot he had, wherever he might have been on the court - unfortunately, he did just that a couple times.

- What a ridiculously chintzy foul call on Mike Scott.

- We forced a lot of turnovers. Very nice job in the turnover department.

- Going forward, the general rule of thumb this year will be: the more an opponent's offense goes through its big men, the less our likelihood of winning. Florida State, with Solomon Alabi and Xavier Gibson, is going to kill us. VT is a very guard-oriented team and therefore is eminently beatable.

weekend review: of hoops and soccer

So, while we wait for the NCAA to get back to us with the soccer bracket, a little celebration is in order for our ACC champion soccer team. I wish they would have ever put any of these games on TV. Seems like the sort of thing that ESPNU was invented for, but what do I know? I guess more people are so starved for football they'd prefer to watch yapping talking heads debate over and over what Tony Pike's injury means for this week's epic clash with whatever random crappy Big East team is on the slate this week. Or whatever. Such is the midweek programming on ESPNU. This is basically the reason I stopped putting anything related to soccer up here. How often can you look at a boxscore and say "gee, I wish we'd score more"?

Funny thing is, that's what our opponents have been saying. All season long. The last goal we gave up was almost exactly one month ago - October 17 in the 13th minute against VT. That's about 837 minutes, give or take, of shutout soccer. The last time we gave up two goals in a game was last year. Unbelievable.

So - the bracket. It's our 29th consecutive NCAA tournament appearance - the longest active streak in the country, by the way - and (unless Tim Weiser is involved) winning the ACC tends to give you a nice seed in the tourney. In our case: 2nd. We'll get the winner of Bucknell/Princeton, and then if we win, a rematch against NC State. There are seven ACC teams in the NCAAs, four of which are seeded. It speaks to the depth of the conference - that, and the fact that the ACC final was the #5 vs. #7 seed.

Now. Hoops! I don't know about you, but I'm really digging on the notion that we're now in basketball season instead of wishing it would start. I don't know how long this happy optimism will last - it might be that that particular bubble gets burst tonight after South Florida's twin 6'10" and above towers expose our donut hole in the middle. I'm willing to enjoy it while we're still undefeated, though.

It would have been really cool not to have been outscored in the second half against Longwood, but for right now, we'll take it. You know Tony Bennett'll get rid of that defensive sloppiness. Not tonight, surely, and probably not even this year entirely, but every indication out of the JPJA is that this is a team that has bought in to what Tony's selling. Two things I think we can count on this year: we will both lose a game and win a game we're not supposed to.

The Good Ol' Blog singles out Farrakhan and Landesberg as two players whose defense stood out, and the writer goes into more depth about those two on the boards (that's "message boards" not rebounding) as well. Mu also racked up 17 points. I bet he never gets that many again all season, but it doesn't matter: Playing defense Coach's way will get him a nice concrete niche in the rotation, and we'll get our answer to the question of whether or not that'll bring about more consistent shooting. And obviously it's nice to see that the guy who'll play the most minutes this year is also the one playing quality defense.

For a little bit of South Florida preview action, in case you read this in the hour or so between now and the game: USF is a Big East team, but only in the most technical sense. It doesn't mean they're good, it means they have no say in the matter of being dog chow for UConn every year. They are also 1-0, having squeaked past SMU 67-61. SMU is a bad team in a mediocre conference - you don't beat them by six if you want to make the NCAAs. (You also don't get outscored by Longwood in the second half but that is entirely beside the point.)

However. We are, of course, without our 7-footer for another two games, which is unhealthy when your opponent starts one player who is 6'10" and another who is 6'11". We still don't have a grasp on what kind of strategy Bennett likes to employ in situations like this, but here's my best guess: We'll start four guards again, that much is likely, and attempt to run the Bulls out of the gym from the get-go. On Friday that was portrayed as a reaction to the way Longwood likes to play; tonight, we'll try and make USF react. Outside shooting is huge. If the game goes well, our guards will dominate our side of the scoresheet.

If the shooting is cold and their bigs aren't tired, and we can't defend two big men at once, we'll see a lot more biggish guys rotate in and try to rough it up a bit. We could see Will Sherrill if for no other reason than he brings five fouls to the court. Spurlock should see a bigger role regardless. Meyinsse and Scott are going to have to pretend to be centers. I'm willing to bet that the number of minutes played by "post" types (not that we have many true ones, but for now, these are Scott, Meyinsse, Sherrill, and Spurlock in a great big emergency) vs. the number of minutes played by guard types (specifically the reserves, Jones and Evans, and maybe Farrakhan too) will be a great predictor of the outcome. More guard minutes? Win. More post minutes? Ehhhhhhh maybe not so much.

One fun thing: South Florida's roster includes freshman guard Jordan Dumars, the son of Pistons great Joe.

For the rest of the week, look for the following things: ACC roundtable, Q&A with Block-C (as it's Clemson week), Jim Grobe, Clemson preview, and probably every basketball thought that pops into my head, unfiltered.

it's hard to get angry at a bad team

Toward the end there, I was really starting to want that game. Obviously, you want the win; as a bonus, it would have knocked Boston College mathematically out of the ACCCG, which, sorry BC fans, but a third straight BC trip to that game would be awful for the conference. So there was a nice double whammy going, and damn if it didn't look like it was going to happen for a while there.

Then, of course, reality sank in, and here we are. And it didn't even suck too bad. Which, is that a bad thing in itself? If we were in contention for anything - anything at all - I'd have spent this whole day and probably most of the rest of the week brooding over the myriad single plays that could have swung the game the other way. If Randolph hadn't missed a field goal; if Vic Hall (of all people!) hadn't dropped a pair of passes on the same series; if we hadn't let BC out of a first-and-25 on their scoring drive; and most obviously, if Sewell could have picked up just six more inches. This is the stuff I'd have been brooding about all day. Instead I played a bunch of Civ and watched stock cars go round and round. I've come to the placid acceptance that the season is a wash. That combined with the beginning of basketball season and the happy glow from a surprise ACC soccer championship would seem to be therapeutic.

(The soccer would be a million times more exciting to me if they would ever televise a soccer game, ever. You'd think that's what ESPNU is for, but no, they'd rather broadcast "Inside the Big East" and replays of random shitty MAC games from the previous Tuesday. As it is the best I can do is nod happily.)

Anyway, this newfound numbness over losing is all well and good, as long as it's short-term and followed by a "change in the program's direction" in the offseason. You might remember I once opined that Al Groh's greatest contribution to the program has been to keep our expectations high. He might not always have met them, but he's done more than well enough to keep us wanting more. This is healthy. The last thing we want is to go the way of North Carolina, post-Mack Brown. Carl Torbush came in and let things slide, and people there lowered their expectations and stopped really caring, and it got to the point where six years of John Bunting seemed perfectly acceptable even as he flushed the football team down the crapper. I am hoping that expectations next August do not match those for next week.

*******************************************************

- BC fans ought to be furious this week. Livid. Here they are trying to stay alive for an ACC championship and their coaches came thisclose to pissing it away. I don't know who was calling the defense on our final almost-scoring drive, whether it was Spaziani or DC Bill McGovern, but they need first to be slapped and after that to learn how to scout the opposition. You are up against the second-worst offense in the entire country - worse than all the shitty Eastern Michigans, Washington States, New Mexicos, Ball States, and all the rest - and you have given up three points to that offense all day, and just because there are only two short minutes left in the game, that is the time to switch to a soft prevent zone? We haven't moved the ball like that all year because teams insist on never playing zone against us. Imagine that. It turned out OK for BC in the end, but it damn near didn't, and it would have been the Bad Decision of the Year for the Eagles. Hint to all future opposing defenses: Never ever deviate from man coverage and we will not score any touchdowns.

- Let's just agree to not play any running backs this season except for Rashawn Jackson.

- Special teams at the beginning of the season were just sort of crummy in a really boring way. Randolph has been near-automatic this year, which is nice, and Howell's a decent punter, but the return and coverage units were just wandering about in the wilderness. Somehow the special teams have made huge improvements and at the same time, regressed horribly. Now we block punts for touchdowns, return punts for touchdowns, and don't kick the ball out of bounds any more. It looks great. At the same time, we negate our TDs with the world's stupidest penalties and rough the punter on 4th-and-22. I don't know whether to give Ron Prince major-league credit for coming up with innovative punt rushes and improving the return blocking as the season goes, or rip him a new one for neglecting to coach his guys not to block in the back and dialing up all-out bumrushes on 4th-and-22.

- Putting us on national TV next week seems like a really nutty idea, but keep in mind: it's all about Clemson. They win, they set up a rematch with Georgia Tech in Tampa. Prepare yourself for the C.J. Spiller Heisman campaign as brought to you by ESPN, and for the announcers to be not entirely sure which team he's playing against. Besides, once you get past the ESPN2 game (BC-UNC) the next three games are disasters. I want to know where I can get the three-way parlay on TFSU, Miami, and Poly to each win by three touchdowns.

- It's basketball season, and Tony Bennett is 1-0.

Blogpoll ballot Week 11

Here you go. Comments welcome as always. My own after the ballot.

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Texas
2	Alabama
3	Florida
4	Georgia Tech
5	TCU
6	Cincinnati
7	Boise State
8	Oregon	1
9	Ohio State	3
10	Pittsburgh	3
11	LSU
12	Iowa	2
13	Wisconsin	4
14	Penn State	4
15	Houston	7
16	Oklahoma State
17	Virginia Tech	2
18	Stanford
19	Southern Cal	9
20	Clemson	1
21	Miami (Florida)	6
22	Nebraska
23	Boston College
24	Arizona	1
25	Oregon State
Last week's ballot

Dropped Out: Utah (#20), Navy (#22), Auburn (#24), Notre Dame (#25).

So, I really wish, this week, it was a 20-team ranking, because I sort of had to hold my nose to rank these last five. There's nobody especially deserving. Some notes:

- I'm not sure I dropped Houston far enough. Would have liked to drop them more, but then I'd have to push Oklahoma State further down the ballot too and they don't need to be any lower than they are.

- I have told you time and again that Utah is a fraud. I'm pleased they showed as much yesterday. Bye-bye.

- Cal, Arizona, and Oregon State have a little circle of death going in which they're all 1-1 against each other. I hate when that happens. Of the three, I decided to rank the two that were competitive in their losses and didn't become somebody's chew toy.

- Fellow voters in the Blogpoll, coaches' poll, and AP poll: STOP RANKING BYU. I have kept them off my ballot these many weeks because they haven't done squat. Once Oklahoma ceased to be Oklahoma, you might as well rank Temple or Central Michigan. Seriously. Either of those two teams is a better choice than BYU. In part because neither of them have five-point wins over 0-10 teams. Step away from the BYU button.